Musings

Over the years I have discovered in teaching required religion courses at the college level (which students were required to take – and perhaps many did not want to be there) that there is a built in bias towards religious vocabulary, religious language (perhaps in many cases, legitimately). Words like God, sin, salvation, repentance, obedience, to list a few raise in people certain preconceived understandings or emotional responses which shut down an openness to explore what God’s Story and Vision may entail.

I’ve discovered that much of this bias is do to perhaps with being brought up in church or a religious household where religion or faith, belief, dogma was somewhat “forced” upon them, to be accepted more or less without question. When older, and questions are raised about what was taught and learned, there is no rubric or process for openly questioning what was taught.

As a professor teaching intro religion courses, I have tried to create safe places for raising questions, exploring questions related to faith. I have encountered persons who for the most part are done with church because, not only what they were taught, but also that they were hurt in some way by the limits placed around faith – what one needed to believe to be saved, the do’s and don’ts that accompanied being a person of moral character, feeling stifled or shunned when questioning the foundations of faith. Yet, in being done with church, many are still open to God, but are seeking non-religious ways to explore and experience God.

I have found what helps open up dialogue is to get at the meaning of some of these religious words, to get past the biases, by using different vocabulary for religious words. For example, “sin” is a word that almost immediately raises a number of barriers – even with people who do attend church. We hate to admit we are “sinners” and find the term condemning, unforgiving, and graceless. However, over the past number of years, I have stopped using the term “sin” (because of it being commonly misunderstood), and have instead spoken of our “overt preoccupation with ourselves” (which is essentially what sin is as we explore how it is presented in Scripture). When I speak of our “overt preoccupation with ourselves,” people who would deny that they are sinners, are indeed apt to express, “yeah, I can see that being true of me.” I find that people are less likely to see this as a statement of judgment because it is something we can often readily admit about our actions.

Then when we talk about “salvation,” (perhaps better embraced with an idea of “restoration,” even, “restorying our lives”), we can openly discuss as to how we might deal with our being overtly preoccupied with ourselves – it becomes a discussion about ourselves and how our lives have become disoriented, even, de-storied in relation to what it is to be humane human beings. Then, that just might open some doors to discuss how Jesus’ action/actions contribute and enable us to confront this motivation in our lives, even how “repentance” may not be so much a religious word, but rather a word that points out the kind of paradigm shift that needs to take place in our lives to grow/develop/become more humane human beings and less preoccupied with ourselves.

So, then when we talk about Jesus (Yeshua), his name meaning “YHWH Saves” we can begin to have a very different kind of conversation leading to a different understanding of what it means for Jesus to have become one of us in order to restore us as human beings. In essence (stuff for another post), what Jesus came to do was not to establish another religion (like we have done), rather he came to restore, re-create humanity so that we might be more humane, be better stewards of the earth, and to flourish and thrive in our relationships, in life and in our actions.

Even for me, this is what I desire for myself, and why I follow Jesus. I desire to be a person who helps others flourish and discover what it means to embrace the fullness of life. My following Jesus has nothing to do with being religious, it has everything to do with the way I want to live out my humanity – to be loving, kind, caring, compassionate, giving, nurturing, accepting, empathetic, understanding, encouraging.

You can add to the list of what makes us humane human beings.